The journey begins today with a trip to Vancouver, where we will overnight and board our flights tomorrow afternoon. As usual summer traffic on the ferries was heavy, but luckily we did not have to do a ferry wait. What was unusual about today was the atmosphere - there is so much smoke in the air from all the fires that it looks like it is mid November with fog, rather than mid August. The sun was just a big orange red orb shining through it all. It i a little bit disorientating as you think it should be colder than it actually is.
Aug 20
It is finally here, the trip truly starts. Another smokey day, I think even more so than yesterday. Nice leisurely morning as our flight was not scheduled to leave until 2:45, but we were bout 40 minutes later than that. Interesting turn of event when we made a stop in Calgary to pick up more passengers. Because the continuation flight was a different flight number, everyone had to deplane with their luggage, etc and re-board again when the plane was ready to go - this led to a further 45 delay.
Our winged chariot for the journey
Interesting looking clouds on the way to Calgary
this way our taxiway guide on the Calgary tarmac - he was quite happy, giving us a bit of a show doing some fancy footwork as he walked alongside us - anything to take the boredom out of what is probably pretty mundane job, and entertaining us in the meantime.
We were still about 4 hours out of Amsterdam as the sun started to rise - this was a line of haze on the horizon, I am thinking it is smoke from the European fires causing as much havoc as the ones we have in North America.
Strange pink cloud center
another interesting cloud layer on our approach to Amsterdam
We arrived in Amsterdam, negotiated the massive Schiphol Airport (why is it Murphy's law that you will always deplane at the gate the furthest from the baggage collection???). Then it was on to the train for a quick 20 min run into the city. Trains are really convenient and easy to find at Schiphol. We were going to get a taxi from the station to our hotel, but the taxi driver said, you are better off to walk, it is only 10 minutes (I secretly think he was looking for a bigger fare). Note to self: always doubt people who say it is only a short walk - 10 minutes turned into 30, shleping baggage across cobbles streets, dodging other baggage carrying visitors, doing the same thing, looking for their accommodation, having a general idea where it is, but not having the details firmly etched in their travel weary brains.
Bill went on a scouting mission to find our hotel, while I "supervised the luggage" at the side of the road - Our first Amsterdam houses
We made it to our hotel finally, checked in, went to have something to eat, then crashed into bed after about 26 hours of being up. It was 4PM Amsterdam time 7AM Campbell River time! Going to take a day or two to get the body clock turned around.
No comments:
Post a Comment